• Senate passes #FAA bill, which would create a new jet fuel research center:

News Tribune — Sen. Maria Cantwell hopes a bill reauthorizing funding for the Federal Aviation Administration will bring a new jet fuel research center to the Tri-Cities.

“We don’t know where it will be located,” Cantwell, D-Wash., told the Herald after the Senate approved the $63.4 billion FAA bill 75-20 on Monday. “It’s not for sure it is even going to our state.”

Cantwell said she believes the center would be a good fit with the biofuels research being done by Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — and would be a boost for jobs in Central Washington.

“I am hoping people will take a serious look at the Tri-Cities,” she said.

She said the bill overall brings a lot of benefits to Washington, including funding for the Tri-Cities Airport to repave a runway and make improvements to a ramp in the general aviation area.

Airport Director Ron Foraker said the runway repair had been planned for last year, but was postponed because of uncertainty.

The bill passed by the Senate on Monday, and by the House on Friday, authorizes $63.4 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration over four years.

It is the first four-year authorization since the last one expired in 2007 — and there have been 23 short-term continuing resolutions since, Cantwell said.

That meant airports were challenged to plan for repairs funded by FAA’s Airport Improvement Program — which traditionally has provided most of the money for capital improvements and equipment while local airports contribute a small percentage of costs — because some of those resolutions were for as little as six weeks, and airports couldn’t reliably predict when the next budget authorization might come.

“Every problem they came up with, everything they needed to do, everything they had to focus on — they didn’t know the answer to whether they would have a bill or not and whether they would get funded,” Cantwell said.

Foraker said one problem with the short-term resolutions is that money came too late in the year to make meaningful progress on projects before fall or winter weather set in.

But with the stability of a four-year resolution, the Tri-Cities Airport can plan for construction in May or June instead of August or September.

“As this bill is going to be good through 2015, it gives us a good, stable funding source for our time frame,” he said.

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